Introspection

My father, Frank Rampolla (1931–1971), was a figurative expressionist artist who painted with raw honesty. His canvases spoke of dignity amid isolation, the scars of war, search for an all-consuming faith and hope. Even when he filled a scene with figures, their gazes rarely met. Presence and absence lived side by side in that silence.

These portraits move through that same space. In a world that is wired together yet painfully alone, we slip into masks without noticing, identities shaped by expectation, protection, and silence. These portraits sift beneath the surface, listening for what solitude, memory, and time leave behind.

I lost my father more than fifty years ago. That absence taught me to meet silence by looking longer. Listening to what’s not said. These portraits come from that practice. I wait for small signals. Presence wavers. Something unguarded appears.

What draws me is not the story people reveal but the one they carry. The space in between. Texture that is scarred, weathered, and worn becomes part of their truth. Emotion is not always declared. It settles beneath the persona.

These portraits are not reflections. They are what is left. Not the selves once performed or hoped to perform, but what is left when the performance stops.